Educação para a sustentabilidade: a presença da ONG Gaia Education no Brasil

Abstract

In recent decades, the criticism of the development model adopted by nations has become the starting point in the search for solutions for a sustainable future. The scientific alerts and the agreements signed during the international conferences on the environment and development, promoted by the United Nations (UN), have pointed out that this model needs to be recreated, given the present environmental, social, political, and economic crisis. The increase in poverty, the various inequalities (income, gender, technological, educational, etc.), unemployment, democratic instability, climate crisis, job insecurity, mass migration, etc., are sure signs that indicate the real need to reassess the paths of our collective strategies (UN, 2020). The Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) Gaia Education is a collaborator of the Global Action Programme of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), and is considered by this institution as an accelerator and official partner in achieving the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and as one of the important global agents active in education for sustainability and in the transition to a sustainable planet, disseminating, through its educational programs, various practices, researches, experiments and new worldviews that allow us to recreate our relationship with nature and with ourselves. Gaia Education main effort was to systematize the knowledge of intentional communities and successful community projects around the globe in a training program launched in 2005, called Ecovillage Design Education - EDE. EDE has been held in Brazil for over 10 years and, according to the NGO, the program trains citizens who occupy different positions in the third sector, government, business, and society to act towards positive social transformation, aligned to the principles of sustainability, and as multipliers of the knowledge learned. It is estimated that more than 2000 people have taken the EDE in Brazil and about 25000 people have graduated from Gaia Education courses in 55 countries around the world. Thus, in view of the strategic relevance of the diffusion of educational programs capable of promoting the transition to a sustainable society, and in view of the national and international prominence of the educational programs offered by Gaia Education, this research proposes to answer the following question: to what extent do the sustainability education courses offered by Gaia Education in Brazil stimulate sustainable development and sustainable lifestyles? To this end, a methodological instrument was developed in this research (survey) in order to assess the impacto of social-ecological initiatives and training programs in sustainability in the light of Sustainable Development Goals 4.7. The data from the egresses of the Gaia Education training courses collected in this study were analyzed through a univariate descriptive analysis. As results, a profile of Gaia Education’s egresses in Brazil and their respective initiatives undertaken was obtained, as well as a detailed overview of the skills and intelligences provided by the NGO’s formative programs.